The present invention relates generally to a hearing aid system, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a method and system involving a hearing aid (e.g. in the ear), the audio characteristics of the system and method being controlled by a module that performs a joint assessment of the real-time cognitive state of the user along with an assessment of the real-time context of the user.
A hearing aid is conventionally an electroacoustic device designed to amplify sound for the wearer, usually with the aim of making speech more intelligible, and to correct impaired hearing as measured by audiometry. It is noted that a hearing aid and a telephone are “compatible” when they can connect to each other in a way that produces clear, easily-understood sound. The term “compatibility” is applied to all three types of telephones (e.g., wired, cordless, and mobile). There are several ways telephones and hearing aids can connect with each other, including acoustically: the sound from the phone's speaker is picked up by the hearing aid's microphone; and electromagnetically: the signal inside the phone's speaker is picked up by the hearing aid's “telecoil” or “T-coil”, a special loop of wire inside the hearing aid. Many theatres and lecture halls are now equipped with assistive listening systems that transmit the sound directly from the stage. Many hearing aids now have both an omnidirectional and a directional microphone. Adaptive directional microphones vary the direction of maximum amplification.
In a conventional technique, in order to make the operation, control and/or program selection of a hearing aid easier and in order to make manual operations and actuation means superfluous, the operation (e.g., switching on/off, setting softer/louder, selection of a program matched to an auditory/ambient situation, etc.) or the control of a part of the hearing aid that influences the transmission characteristic of the amplifier ensues in the hearing aid by conventionally recognizing and evaluating a code word spoken by the hearing aid user.
Other conventional techniques include a hearing aid having a memory configured to store current configuration data and an accelerometer to convert mechanical motion into a signal representing the mechanical motion. The hearing aid further includes a logic circuit coupled to the accelerometer to receive the signal and to selectively update the configuration data based on the signal. The accelerometer may be a tri-axial accelerometer.
However, none of the conventional techniques considers an assessment of the real-time cognitive state of the user along with an assessment of the real-time context of the user to control audio characteristics.